“Hello, I don’t know who I am and I offer you a job to ‘like’ a YouTube video. It’s a job from home and you can earn between 500 and 3,000 euros per month.” This text may sound familiar to more than one person because it is one of the most well-known hooks that start one of the most common scams on WhatsApp. It’s not the only one and they all start the same way: a stranger, usually with a company phone number and an access code from a foreign country, suddenly starts a conversation and tries to scam us. WhatsApp is already working on a function that will put an end to this.

Origin. WhatsApp has a big problem and that is that anyone who knows our phone number can start a chat with us. There is no message request tab like on Instagram, TikTok or (if there is one). And you don’t even need to save us as a contact.

There’s no way around it. There is no solution to this situation that is not specific to this messaging app. There is no setting, shortcut, tab or button that we can activate to prevent a stranger from writing to us on WhatsApp. The only alternative is to pay attention to such messages, block the person and report them as SPAM to WhatsApp. The app also works internally to detect SPAM and automations, but in any case, nothing prevents someone from Bosnia and Herzegovina from writing to us offering us money in exchange for ‘liking’ a YouTube video.

Solution is on its wayAs reported by WaBetaInfo, in the new beta version of WhatsApp for Android (version 2.24.17.24), a new function has been discovered whose name speaks for itself: “Block messages from unknown accounts”. As stated in its description:

“To protect your account and improve device performance, WhatsApp will block messages from unknown accounts if they exceed a certain volume.”

At the top you can see the new setting to block messages from strangers | Image: WaBetaInfo

At the expense of knowing exactly how this function will work and what WhatsApp means by “a certain volume”, everything seems to indicate that the application tries to arm itself, above all, against spammers who send a large number of messages at the same time. This would also explain what is related to the performance of the device. It is true that current terminals can handle a large number of WhatsApp messages, but there are still many old mid-range devices whose speeds can decrease when a large number of messages are received in a row, especially if they contain links or multimedia.

Under development. The feature is currently under development, so the release date is unknown. In any case, the time from leak to launch is usually short. Even so, while this option can help reduce spam, it never hurts to always be careful with unknown messages and, when in doubt, block and report the number.

Image | Xataka

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